ied
out to the letter, Mr. Harding, and I have been asked to see into it."

"Very well, I've no objection on earth; and now we need not say another
word about it."

"Only one word more, Mr. Harding. Chadwick has referred me to lawyers.
In what I do I may appear to be interfering with you, and I hope you
will forgive me for doing so."

"Mr. Bold," said the other, speaking with some solemnity, "if you act
justly, say nothing in this matter but the truth, and use no unfair
weapons in carrying out your purposes, I shall have nothing to forgive.
I presume you think I am not entitled to the income I receive from the
hospital, and that others are entitled to it. Whatever some may do, I
shall never attribute to you base motives because you hold an opinion
opposed to my own and adverse to my interests; pray do what you consider
to be your duty; I can give you no assistance, neither will I offer you
any obstacle. Let me, however, suggest to you that you can in no wise
forward your views, nor I mine, by any discussion between us. Here comes
Eleanor and the ponies, and we'll go in to tea."

Bold felt that he could not sit down at ease with Mr. Harding and his
daughter after what had passed, and therefore excused himself with much
awkward apology; and, merely raising his hat and bowing as he passed
Eleanor and the pony chair, left her in disappointed amazement at his
departure.

_III.--Iphigenia_

The bedesmen heard a whisper that they were entitled to one hundred
pounds a year, and signed a petition, which Abel Handy drew up, to the
bishop as visitor, praying his lordship to see justice done to the legal
recipients of John Hiram's charity. John Bold was advised to institute
formal proceedings against Mr. Harding and Mr. Chadwick. Archdeacon
Grantly took up the cause of the warden, and obtained a legal opinion
from the attorney general, Sir Abraham Haphazard, that Mr. Harding and
Mr. Chadwick being only paid servants, the action should not have been
brought against them, but that the defendants should have been either
the corporation of Barchester, or possibly the dean and chapter, or the
bishop. That all-powerful organ of the press, the daily _Jupiter_,
launched a leading thunderbolt against the administration of Hiram's
Hospital, which made out the warden to be a man unjust, grasping--and
the responsibility for this attack rested upon John Bold's friend Tom
Towers, of the Temple.

Bold kept away from the warden's hous